Jobar

Jobar is a municipality and suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus, located 1.2 miles from the old city walls. In the Talmud, Jobar was described as one of ten Jewish villages near Damascus, and by 1522 60 Jewish families (mostly Sephardim) lived in Jobar - Ibn Tulun said that Jobar was a Jewish town with a Muslim presence. From 1735 to 1839, the village was said to have been inhabited entirely by Jews, but the Muslim population later increased. Between 1874 and 1893, however, it became a Muslim village and only a pilgrimage site for Jews, as the Jobar Synagogue dedicated to Elijah was the main site of reverence for Syrian Jews. Most Jews left when Israel was established in 1948, as discrimination reached high levels; the synagogue was turned into a school for displaced Palestinians. In 2013, the neighborhood was hit by chemical attacks during the Syrian Civil War, and two-thirds of the old synagogue were destroyed by mortar attacks during the battles around Damascus.